


Starting at one

by ilex9



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: AU, Experimental, First Person Perspective, Gen, OC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:23:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilex9/pseuds/ilex9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU of crack-shipping AU I started on ff.net and mucked about with for years that could be considered a prequel, but not necessarily. Just experimenting with original character development, alternate character development.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

### One

I wasn't tossing and turning. Not like I had done on some nights when it got as sticky as this. Distinctly aware of staying laid out on my back, I managed a sense of relaxed lucidity. I know I dreamed something, but if someone were to ask me about it this morning, I could only manage describing splintered dialogue that cut through the measured sound of the waves ebbing and flowing into the shore outside my window that I always heard as background noise in all my dreams.

"No." This from a voice I didn't recognize, a man, the timbre low and inflection... threatening? The statement certainly not an entreaty, more possibly a command.

"You shouldn't be here!" Most certainly my dad, kind of amusing that he spoke in a harsh whisper as though trying not to wake the household, and possibly more entreaty than statement. "Just... Get lost if you know what's good for you!"

"Ha!" Quite loud, no sense that it mattered that anyone was sleeping or not. "As much as I would like to fight..." The conversation broke here in a loaded pause, or maybe I don't remember or actually dropped into heavy enough to sleep to miss a portion. "...your wife. No time, this time."


	2. Chapter 2

### Two

So I'm thinking about this and my mind side tracks to vocabulary. It surprises me that even when I'm thinking to myself, the voice in my head uses words like "inflection" and "entreaty", even though tomorrow I'm just turning nine years old.

Of course, this is ChiChi's fault. Or, really, it's Gohan's. Well, no... it was ChiChi's idea I spend a few months up in the mountains, give my dad a break. And, "didn't he realize how inappropriate Roshi's influence was on a young girl." Except she said "dirty, perverted old man" instead of using his name, let alone being -appropriate- and calling him "Master" or at least "Mister".

I like ChiChi. Not only is she kind of funny when she does stuff like that, but when someone pisses her off, she just doesn't quit. No matter what. And of course, she knows how to feed a body. But still, it's not like I'd let anyone know I like her, especially ChiChi.


	3. Chapter 3

### Three

I get up and make the two small strides it takes to get to my dresser, look in the mirror as I'm thinking about what to wear. Mash my hair around with my fingers uselessly. I'm not even going to try starting to mess with a comb yet, this early in the day.

Then I see it in the reflection. The things on my bookshelf: memorabilia I keep to remind myself of my successes... and failures. The three empty milk bottles have moved so that there's more space in between them. The paper wasps' nest surely seems like the side I took several bites out of is turned more towards the back of the shelf.

When I go to take a closer look, the dust is definitely disturbed, bits of the nest have been peeled off and crumbled, sprinkling the floor like ashes. Only one culprit comes to mind immediately, the necessity of them climbing, probably struggling at first to reach the shelf explains what I might have taken as large footprints in the flotsam on the floor I never seem to get to sweeping.

"God dammit!" I forget to check my language, or change out of the large t-shirt I use for pajamas as I stomp out of the room, yelling. "Marron!"


	4. Chapter 4

### Four

The second I step over the threshold of my room, the smell of waffles hits me. Everyone is already involved with breakfast. Dad is sending frozen waffles in, hot ones out of the toaster like a robot on an assembly line.

Number Eighteen sits sideways in her chair. Her legs are crossed but to me she still looks like she might get up and go somewhere in an instant. She is sipping from a teacup in one hand which she puts down to turn the page of the fashion magazine she holds in the other. She tears off a piece of a waffle and hands it to Marron, who is boosted on her chair by a stack of books, before picking up the teacup again.

Dad grins at me and sets a foot-high pile of waffles at my place at the table before I even sit down. I start to ask for the strawberry jam, but he delivers the jar before the words leave my mouth. "Sweets for the sweet," he says, and goes back to manning the toaster, knowing I will want another plate of waffles before I am done and that I am grinning back already.

As I tuck in to breakfast, it suddenly seems silly to be angry at my sister. She is only three after all. Number Eighteen has already started our game anyway. She sets the magazine open to a photo shoot of some models in swanky looking dresses and points to one. "This," she says.


	5. Chapter 5

### Five

Number Eighteen is really pushing it this time. I am pretty sure no one in this household can afford the Versace silk brocade mini dress, let alone two of them.

"Uh... OK", I say. She gives me a look, slightly perceptible, that says _"it's either yes or no."_ My lips curl into a wide smile. "Heh, are you kidding?!... Want! Yes!" I amend.

Sometimes, the outfits turn up, sometimes it's ones that are similar, inspired by, but less expensive. Still classy though, not fakes or knock offs.

The game goes like this. We dress. We spar. The one who comes out still looking mostly like a million bucks wins. The end. It involves a bit more strategy than simply just thrashing the shit out of each other. She mostly wins still, she is _sooo_ much stronger than me and technique... well, I am still mostly stuck in a rut of thrashing the shit out of things. But I like to think I'm learning.

Number Eighteen snatches the magazine away and looks me up and down, letting me know that the ensemble I have shown up at breakfast in is evidence I have a real long way to go.


	6. Chapter 6

### Six

So I am back to the mirror, the hair. I have to decide about it before I can decide what to wear.

I look over my options: Brush, pick, oil and hot comb... ugh, not today. Too much time investment. We're moving Kame House to the mainland this evening. I don't want to spend half the day with this. It's also a really messy affair... for me anyway.

I could just leave it alone, endure Number Eighteen's scorn for the day. It's what I usually do anyway. I'm in the fix I'm in now because it's been about a week of avoiding this, I know that. I sigh heavily. Having a birthday party I need to make an appearance at wasn't my idea, I don't even want one. I don't even know who's idea it was. Nobody around here seems to be taking credit for it, though everyone seems up for it. I'm surprised Number Eighteen gets that half-a-smile occasionally when Dad brings it up. I guess we all already know Marron will have a blast even if it's not her party.

My eyes graze my last, and truthfully best option, the scissors and clippers. Number Eighteen doesn't really approve of this either, but by evening it'll be ok. Mostly I don't like it because it gives me the creeps, to be honest. I had to have been about Marron's age the first time I tried scissors. I was real proud of my look... I don't really remember if it was actually any good, probably not, but I do remember the feeling, being so wildly impressed with myself.

Then I woke up the next morning and it was like I hadn't done a thing, my hair was back to being long enough to trip over. I don't recall exactly what happened after that, but there's still a 3,812 kilometer long divot (ok, immeasurably deep chasm...I know the length measurement because Number Eighteen just walked up to me one day in the beginning when I pissed her off and quietly dropped the number) in the back side of the island. I'm not even sure that I cried tears over the hair being back, but I'm positive I screamed until my throat went raw because I do have memories of not being able to talk above a whisper for a few days.

And that in the whirlwind of whatever I'd done, it was the first time I knew Dad was _scared_... not just a little nerves like he sometimes gets over in a minute and laughs about. He was really deeply horrified. Of me. The only clear and solid pictures in my mind from the incident is the look on his face, and how it went away just a little more later on when he checked the scar near my backside. I don't even know why that sticks with me so strong... that and the feeling about the whole thing. It's one of the few things that actually scares the living shit outta me.

I sigh heavily, shut my eyes and start snipping indiscriminately. It won't really matter if it's a good job or not by tomorrow.


	7. Chapter 7

### 8 Hours ago, Satan City

She is in the kitchen, working on cupcakes. Two hundred of them. The catering business is going well. Really well... for so long she'd thought she wouldn't even be able to keep up with any real job, much less a business that involved making multiple deliveries, keeping clients happy and the like. Go figure. She hums as she spoons batter into each cup, making sure to measure the amount just right, that all the paper liners are identically full, no drips, no spills. Other than that and following the tune, her mind is mostly empty and she likes it that way. No reason to complicate things any more than need be.

The song is interrupted by a rattle from the sliding glass door that leads out to the balcony. She looks up briefly, out of the bright industrial fluorescent glow of the kitchen, across the darkness of the small sitting room area. She sees the shadowy bulk of a figure on the other side of the glass. It is menacing, it is familiar. Nevermind that no one should be on her balcony; her appartment and business are on the fifth floor.

She turns her attention back to the little cakes, picks up the song right where she left off. The rattle becomes a rending snap as the lock is broken, then she hears the door being pulled out of its track, a resonant _thrum_ as the large double paned panel is set aside. She lets herself wonder for a second that her intruder has the wherewithal?... courtesy?... not to have just smashed out the glass. She tries not to think about it beyond that, certainly doesn't allow herself to look up again as she hears the heavy footfalls of his entry. Still, somehow she starts adding words to the song:

> "You're not here. You're not real because you're dead and no one is gonna wish you back, nope, nope, nope. La,la,la..."

Other than the sing-song of the words, all is quiet, so she hazards a glance. He's just standing there in the midst of her carefully chosen furniture (her mind immediately writes it off as unlikely to make it through the night unscathed), arms crossed, part of a smirk the only detail visible in the mostly dark. She already knows his eyes are glaring, but she refuses to stare back, to stop pretending this isn't really happening.

> "Nope, nope, nope, because you're dead and nobody likes you 'cause you're weaker than..."

It is as if she feels the displacement of air right before it happens. Of course, she knows that last was some self-destructive gambit she had to pull just to prove this is not a hallucination. She has a chance to turn.

So as to run? hide?... to what end? He is there before the canister of flour her motion knocks off the counter hits the floor.

"Is that so?" He demands, his arms locked around her from behind in an unyielding and unfriendly bear hug, just this side of crushing. But, by then they're both engulfed in a cloud of flour, swirling in the wake of his arrival and her sneeze.

"Aww, really?" she gripes, trying to move, testing. "This is... ...Shit! Leggo, will ya'"

His arms loosen on their own, and he knows he is still cursed. _Damn it all!_ He realizes the old witch could be watching them right now in her infernal crystal ball, laughing because her rediculous incantation somehow trumps even a reprieve from En-Ma.

She wriggles around to face him. He's let go but he's not going to completely open up unless she specifically asks for it.

She hasn't stopped griping.

"Uggh! This is a mess. What did you even come here for? Can't you see I'm..." She trails off when she gets a good look at him, and starts cackling, which turns into a cough from the persistent flour-haze, that she has trouble staunching. She pinches her nose to prevent another sneeze from escaping.

He just stands there frowning deeply and seriously. It takes him a moment to realize that he is as covered in flour as she is, and this is what she finds so amusing. She is still corralled between him and the edge of her kitchen counter, his arms to either side. He towers over her, all taught bulky muscle and power. She is such a sleight thing, by all rights she should be terrified, but she dares to reach up to start brushing away the flour on his cheeks, in his hair. He immediately steps away, throwing up an aura to burn off the residue.

It seems like this show of his strength might be a good time to say something, announce himself as it were. "I was given some time to return to this dimension," he starts. His annunciation clips each word as though it is the most important thing anyone has said this side of hell, but a second after he opens his mouth, he already feels goaded. He doesn't owe her an explanation! "Though why I came to this place in particular..." he trails off grumbling. She makes a move to step forward as he unconsciously steps back, then just crosses her arms and leans back against the counter surveying him.

"Wondered what it would take to get you to turn loose." Now she frowns, looks non comittedly at her fingernails and flicks something, dried batter or congealed flour, off to the side. "Shoulda showered you in lead for the break 'n entry, just on principle, you know." She looks back up at him, her eyes suddenly shooting daggers. "What do you want, anyway?"

The stench of burnt bread lingers in the air.

He realizes she has taken the upper hand again somehow, and on top of that, the curse requires that he answer her question, though in truth, he doesn't really have an answer. In frustration he grabs at her, pulls her close again by a handful of the front of her shirt, grinds out the best he can muster.

"I had an errand to run. There is time leftover, so I came here."

"The hell, you say!" she spits back, obviously aware he is shirking the question. Even nose to nose her eyes are still drilling him, he can feel the curse tugging at him somewhere in the pit of his gut, compelling him.

"Where is it you think I came from?" he hisses at a half whisper right in her ear.

She grins. He can't see it because he is hovering at her neck, taking in her scent under the heavy smell of the flour still coating her. Still, he knows it's there, wide and mischievous. It's like he can smell the impending need to make some kind of trouble on her as much as anything else. He knows in lingering there he has answered the question, and she is gracious, in her way, in not making him say it out loud.

"Huh, step off," she grunts, pushing him back. Gently, so as to make her point painfully clear. She tosses her hair, then quickly pinches her nose again as it triggers a cascade of white. "Well, where else would you go, I guess."

It's not a question. If it were it would be rhetorical. They both already know that answer, and they leave it hang in a momentary awkward silence. Then she slides her hand along the underside of the counter, retrieving a dyno-cap from hiding, makes a show of weaving it over and under her her fingers before pocketing it. Smiles at him.

"I gotta clean this off and we just got the furniture, so ...can't stay here. I know a place we can go to."

She glides around to the front door beyond the kitchen, gestures for him to follow. "So, it's off to have a little fun, just like we used to, yeah?"


	8. Chapter 8

### Five hours ago

She is sputtering and coughing. There is water everywhere, it is burning in the back of her throat, her eyes. She tastes salt, something cloying and bitter. She blinks and lets her eyes adjust to the half light and curtains of steam. There is destruction, and on a tiled wall pock marked with bullet holes, there is blood.

It has been a very long time for this sort of thing to happen.

"What... what is this...?" She is only questioning herself, but laughter, throaty and deep erupts behind her, echoing off what is left of the walls.

"You are nothing, if not brutal." He tells her between his mirth. "It is truly some kind of gift..."

She turns, slowly this time, silently praying that this is some kind of hallucination, just a bad dream. This can't really be happening...

He reclines, half submerged, arms stretched over the edge of the large pool, huge grin all the more wolfish as his hair is completely slicked back with wetness.

She pinwheels backward, but the water resistance trips her up and there is nothing to grasp at but slick tile, and then skin. She realizes she is going nowhere and tries to stop, clam herself, _think_ , but it is all she can do just to stop the screams from erupting past her lips knowing all too well that sort of entertainment will quickly sour for him and turn to annoyance... and repercussion.

He decides she has forgotten the curse, or hasn't realized post transformation that it is still effective. He knows how to distract her.

"Won't you explain, what you were telling me before..." He says it smoothly, easy. Like a trusted confidant and friend, wraps his forearm around her waist, rigid, entangles one of her legs with his tail. "...about weakness?"

He powers up just enough to send the pool sloshing with waves, set the ground beneath shaking. Bits of tile and concrete rain down momentarily.

Her eyes go wide as saucers, her hand goes up to staunch screams, maybe sobs. He catches it... it takes some skill, like catching a delicate bird in flight without breaking its wings...

And tips her off. Yes, his grip, his touch, is rough, but not bruising. She knows he must still be cursed. He has to do as she asks as long as she can demand it in coherent words. He cannot hurt her... physically.

"No." She says with sudden clarity. Finality. "You have to let me go..."

He releases her completely. Puts his hands in the air. Powers down. Grins sheepishly and shrugs.

"As you wish."

She backs away slowly, in control now... She hopes. He makes no move to follow but there is still laughter dancing in his black eyes.

She hoists herself out of the pool and makes her way around what is left of a partition, through a doorway. All of their clothing has obviously long been discarded, when she sees a robe laying in a heap she picks it up and shrugs it on despite that it is dirty and wet. She tries to think about anything besides her rubbery legs, the soreness between them that tells her they must have been busy with more than destruction and mayhem...

When she reaches the front entryway, panic rises in her again. The floor in front of the door is gouged into a crater, rubble stacked to the ceiling blocking the way.

She starts to run, trying to find another way out. Now she can hear his measured, unhurried pursuit. He is occasionally breaking things along the way to let her know he is coming. All she finds is empty saunas and changing rooms until she winds up in the dark boiler room.

She wedges herself in a shadowed corner between some large pipes and the wall, trying to hide. Knowing it is silliness and folly. There is no way that he _won't_ find her, even in the dark, and all she has to do is say...

"It's a dead end. Little mouse." All of a sudden his hot breath is on her cheek. She turns her head and he catches her lips with his, keeping her mouth occupied so she cannot say a word. For a heartbeat, two?, it seems easiest to reciprocate. She is the one who taught him this, after all; to make this pleasant, leisurely... not... consuming.

His hands begin to roam and she uses the distraction to break away, but immediately his finger is at her lips to silence her.

"Before you order me to blast open this wall and let you run, think about all the people that must be outside to check on the recent explosions and gunfire. Think about what you're going to tell them to explain..."

"I... I just want to go home." The words spill before she has a chance to think about them.

"Fair enough."

Then there is heat and blinding light and the ceiling opens up and they are flying. She has half a second to see that there is, indeed, a crush of people and flashing lights - police, around the building before everything on the ground blurs into a melange of dark gray punctuated by tiny lights.

Within minutes he is setting her down just inside her balcony door. The second his aura drops she is freezing, shivering, her scant covering is still damp and a cold breeze blows in through the open door.

Before she can get her bearings he is searching, first finding a closet, then her bedroom. He reappears with her own bedspread and strips her of the filthy robe, wraps her in the warm blanket and guides her to the couch. He wraps himself around her outside the blanket, heedless that he is only clad in a too-small towel at his waist, lays his head on her shoulder and sighs.

They stay like that, quiet, for what seems a long time. She finds his hand and holds it, softly. There was a time when he would pull away from such a gesture, but not anymore. It is ice cold. Although he has a solid body, he is dead.

She feels like she finally has some wits about her, but the next breath she takes catches in her throat, she has to try again.

"Why did you come back?"

He hisses sharply. "I made a delivery."

"Well, if you come back again, don't come and see me." She needs to say it before asking for anything else. " _Please_ ," she adds, because it's not only about using the curse.

She wants to ask more questions, press for details, but before either of them gets to say anything else he is gone. Just suddenly disappeared, just like that.

"Just like that..." she says to the empty room as the soft light of dawn begins to filter in. She looks over the shambles in the kitchen of the cakes she is supposed to deliver by herself later in the day and thinks it is not the only thing she will have to start all over with.


	9. Chapter 9

### Seven

I feel like what it says on the packages of spicy chips I routinely devour between meals, when watching TV, or while perusing my collection of dictionaries. _"Measured by weight, not volume."_ All the weight is gone from my head, yes, and it looks almost like dad's used to. Volume? Well, I consider drawing some dots on my forehead just to be a pest, but I don't have it in me today for some reason. There is a large plastic garbage bag in the back of my closet. I fish it out and put the morning's casualties in on top of what's already there. The bag is almost full. I don't know why I collect the hair, can't really remember exactly when I started doing it (approximately one large lawn and leaf bag ago, I guess?), or what I plan on doing with it. Mostly I keep it in the back shadows of the closet and go about forgetting about it, my personal monster. Occasionally I wonder when it's going to actually do whatever it is monsters in the closet do to the kids that are afraid of them.

After glancing at the assortment of clothes in the closet, I decide not to really bother dressing and grab my bathing suit (two piece, maybe a bit skimpier than an almost nine year old should wear, red) instead. I am going to spend the day on the back side of the island. Try to navigate my trench. Other than that, be lazy in general. I just don't feel like doing anything much at all, probably because of moving the house. When it's almost time, I'll just toss everything in a couple of capsules, sort it out later.

I don't like leaving the island. But I do like the _idea_ of adventuring, going off places for... something, but I don't actually do it often. Lots of times I think about just heading up Mt. Paozu... Why the hell not? Then the phrase _"don't call us, we'll call you"_ comes to mind and I don't. I should though, really. Maybe I will do that today instead, not wait for tomorrow. I mean, I assume Gohan, in spite of not having bothered to talk to me in years, is coming to this party... but maybe he won't do _that_ either.

As I pass the living room, Master Roshi looks up at me from whatever rag he is reading. Before he can say or do anything, I flip him the bird and shoot him a look that invites him to try me. He just shakes his head and grumbles something. At this point, this sort of thing has become a routine of good natured ribbing, it's not serious and no disrespect is meant in either direction, but under it all, I think he knows he could really get hurt one day, between me and Number Eighteen. We really do worry he's going to get drunk and wind up in traction, or worse, at some point. Number Eighteen says if that happens she won't feel a bit of guilt, and I shouldn't either, but...

Dad is on the phone. He's got his back turned and a finger plugging one ear to block out the blare of the TV Roshi has left on. His end of the conversation is a little loud for the same reason.

"I saw it on the news this morning... No. They said injuries, no deaths." 

He is shifting his weight from foot to foot like he's nervous, and talk of deaths is always... of interest. So I hang around and eavesdrop.

"Actually, you know that smuggling ring they've been trying to bust? They caught them because of it so maybe it's a good thing?... Well," 

He's flustered now...

"I've been trying to call you all morning. You let the battery run out again? What about?... Noooo. I was going to say, your clients... That... It was just weird..."

His voice lowers even though his back is turned, the shifting becoming pacing.

"Brief. No... nothing like that... I don't know. No... Maybe Dende... Yeah, after we move the house."

His voice is gentler now, most of the irritation gone.

"As long as you're ok...?"

His pacing brings him around and he sees me, gets a look on his face that tells me he really didn't want me to overhear. I realize my face probably has a similar look to it because I figured it was my mom the minute he mentioned _"let the batteries run out"_. It's one of the reasons I stopped bothering to call her myself, nevermind not knowing what (who?) I'd get at the other end when I did manage to connect.

"You're still coming tomorrow though?" It's the last thing I hear before I storm out the back door. I just barely check myself and manage not to break anything on the way out. My mood has gone from _"be lazy, check out the trench"_ to _"try making a new trench!"_ that fast.


	10. Chapter 10

### Eight

The ocean is calm today, the sky a brilliant blue barely broken by billowing distant clouds. I think of the view in those words, use the alliteration in my mind to calm myself, then sing it, finding an appropriate auditory key to match the phonetics and a rhythm to go with the gentle waves breaking on the shore around the tide pool that marks the beginning of the gouge I have made in the world. I stretch the words into a tune, add more words. It's all just a mash of gibberish right now, but it's the sounds that matter. 

Once I feel like I have collected enough of the right sounds in the right order, I stop, take a moment to find my center, the core of myself, and imagine putting the collection away in there. Once, when I was really small, I spent the weekend with my mom. She took me to a bank with her. She showed me a key, said it was special... magic key, secret treasure box, something like that. I guess she thought she was having a bit of fun with me. When I got a bit older I figured out it was a safety deposit box we went to so she could put something in. I visualize my center like that box. Some days I have the right key, but sometimes I don't.

Once I think I have a handle on my energy, I start to work with it, feel it flare outward with a force and heat that swirls the ocean water around my waist and lifts it at the same time I dive under, slinging the energy through and behind me.

How far I can get is largely about how fast I can go. I can hold my breath for quite a while, but it messes with my concentration. There's enough light from the surface for me to follow the crack in the sea floor until there's a deep drop off. After that it gets really dark really fast as I continue to follow along the bottom. I can only see as far as my own energy will let me, and I start to get a sense that there is an increase in pressure, but it doesn't affect me too much beyond being a distraction.

I think I might have made it farther along than I have before when I collide with something, and the next thing I know, my arm is tangled in an undulating length of rubbery flesh, and a set of dagger like teeth slash at my face in my now very shallow field of vision.

I realize I have somehow managed to cross paths with a very large, very angry eel, and it uses its hold on my arm to twist around my torso, trying to squeeze the breath from me and twist me so as to get a better shot at biting my face off. I simply reverse the force of my energy into my free arm as the teeth come at me again.

The blast is messy, not well focused or controlled, but does its job. The eel's head is mostly gone besides some bits of stringy pulp. The tangle around me relaxes. As I'm getting myself unwound, I try and get my bearings, looking for the trench. Just before my lungs actually start to burn for air and the thought occurs to me that something else might show up now that I have effectively chummed the area, I find something curious. The wide gouge I had been following has split at this point into two that continue away in the short distance I can discern in almost parallel fashion.

At this point I am so distracted and starved for air, I have no choice but to shoot straight up, fast. Breaking the surface, I find myself floating in the air a moment before crashing back down.

The sea is churning roughly out here, the clouds no longer distant. The island is a tiny, hazy pancake just barely visible on the horizon. I float on my back for a few minutes, catching my breath. I know that a regular person would have got sick from what I just did, surfacing like that without allowing for decompression, but this is far from the first time I've done it, and have yet to feel a tingle in my joints, let alone paralysis. It's one of the things I have learned to accept and not ask questions about. No one seems equipped to give me a straight answer about it anyway.

I gather myself and start flying back to the island - much, much easier through the air than underwater. I barely have to think it through more than walking anymore. I note with remiss that I should have brought what was left of the eel. It would have been tasty, probably had a fine skin as well.


	11. Chapter 11

### Nine

When I get back, Marron is splashing around in the tide pool. She must have got wind that I was coming out here, and she doesn't yet understand that one of the reasons I do is to get some space, or that the island is a very small place for that matter. She loves the tide pool. Really, what kid wouldn't? So, pretty much since she started walking, a place that I used to think of as mine has become something to be shared. Like many other things, this is something I handle well on some days, not so much on others.

Today is not a day I want to, or feel that I am able to handle all that much. The earlier annoyance at the suspicion of her being in my room messing with my stuff rises immediately at the sight of her. She begins bouncing up and down in the shallow water at the sight of me, eager for my company. This only makes things worse, and the fact that I know my reaction is somehow wrong just redoubles annoyance to outright anger.

As soon as I am close enough, the questions start: _"Where did you go? What are you doing?_ " And the ever persistent _"Why? Why? Why?"_

I try, I really, really do. My initial response is innocuous enough.

"Marron, I really can't play today, alright?"

Maybe I shouldn't have phrased it as I question because I only get another in return.

"How come?"

"I just can't... we're moving the house later..."

"Do we have to?!"

I feel heat, energy I thought I had just spent, rising. Sand shifting, vibrating around my toes, my heels.

"I guess... Why were you messing around with my stuff anyway? Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"I wasn't."

She dives under. It's like she immediately writes the accusation off. And everything else I've just told her. She surfaces with a small, black turban snail in each hand, holds them out to me.

"Races!"

On good days, we "race" the snails. It's silly, because they're so slow, and most of it is about building tracks and obstacle courses in the sand. The bottom of the tide pool is always covered in them, so there's no shortage of competitors. Today is not a good day though, and as I attempt to push whatever it is I am feeling down, and the sense of cascading energy coming with it, I realize I have made myself hungry in the process.

"Not today!" I snap, snatching the snails from her open palms. I squeeze them and they crush, then I lick the resulting slurry off my hands. Her mouth hangs open for a second before the crying starts. I just glare at her and spit a few bits of shell into to the sand, my hands now balled into fists at my sides. Marron mirrors my stance despite the tears, and something somewhere inside me is telling me this could wind up being really, really bad if I am not careful... and all the while something else in me is screaming to blot that little voice of rationality out.

I am lucky Number Eighteen appears almost immediately. Her presence alone quells some of my fury.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" she asks calmly.

The question is obviously meant for Marron although her hard gaze is directed at me. Marron runs to her, still wailing, and jumps into her arms. She twists around and points her tiny finger at me in accusation.

"She! Eats! Everything!" She howls, her tears seemingly becoming more earnest with each word. Then she buries her face in her mother's shoulder.

"What?!" I'm laughing now, but it's not a good thing. My perturbation only pumps my anger back up. "That... That's not even..." My nails are digging into my palms now. I can feel the little bit of my hair that's already grown back standing on end.

" _ **All**_ the snails! _**All**_ the waffles!" Marron laments between sobbing.

"It was two snails! _**Two!**_ I retort. "And you left the table before I was finished this morning..."

Number Eighteen says, "Marron, that's true. You left the breakfast table and said you were full." But she is still looking at me.

"But...but..." Marron hiccups. She seems to be calming down somewhat. My own fire subsides, a little, but it still feels like a bubble caught somewhere between my gut and my heart, waiting to burst.

"If you're still hungry, hurry up and go inside, ask your dad to get you something. We have visitors on the way, and then we move, so now will be better than later." 

Number Eighteen puts Marron down and sends her in the direction of the house, but she shuffles slowly and half way there she stops and turns around.

"What about you?" Tears threaten to spill again, but this time it's likely more for show than real distress.

"We will be there in a moment." Number Eighteen turns towards her now, probably giving her some of the same quiet but serious motivation I have just received.

Marron pauses a minute, then sets off a little faster towards the house, but she still drags her feet enough to leave long twin trails in the sand, reminding me of what I just discovered on my underwater sojourn.

When she returns her attention to me, Number Eighteen says "You know, you might do better if you respond to her with less in the way of theatrics." Her eyes narrow slightly as she says this.

I have cooled off for the most part. In fact, I am now feeling a bit fatigued, but her choice of words and delivery stings, and I know she means for it to.

"But I didn't _**do**_ anything!" I hear the fretful tone in my voice and instantly regret my response, but...

"Have you forgotten you were that age once and we didn't get along then? I learned some things from that. Did you?"

"I don't know. It seems like a long time ago." I know I'm pouting now and I feel heat rise, this time as color floods my face, but I can't help myself. I have never taken chastisement well, even when I know it's deserved.

"So was that." She inclines her head slightly towards the tide pool. "How far did you make it today?"

"As far as..." I am about to say something about the split in the trench, but she cuts me off, sniffing with slight derision.

"Kilometers?..."

"I... I don't know. I forgot to count this time."

"Hmm." She responds as though this is no surprise.

"It splits. That's where I got. You never told me there's more than one..."

"It doesn't matter if you can't be bothered to focus. You could do better."

She looks me up and down again, as she did earlier in the morning, clearly unimpressed, and punctuates this when she says "I think the visitors are mostly for you," and leaves me on the beach.

I consider siting in the slimiest, most algae filled part of the tide pool for the foreseeable future and gorging myself on raw limpets and urchins, see if she likes the state of me then. But the thing is, when she says I could do better I trust her. I know if it wasn't true, she wouldn't bother. So, I set my hunger and the threat of weariness aside and go in to try and put myself together to receive guests in at least a somewhat civilized state.


	12. Ten

# Ten

I barely have time to throw on the first easy thing within reach, a baby-doll style shift in a forest green color that I am not sure looks right on me. My hair in such short, ragged condition just adds to the look of some pitiful little waif, but I don't get to do anything about it before I hear the front door being opened and dad ushering in the visitors.

I know it's Tien and Chaotzu before I get back out to the small living area because Marron is already squealing Chaotzu's name in delight, and I have never seen one without the other.

Number Eighteen brings tea for everyone, even though Marron and Chaotzu have already started playing some kind of hide and seek game and dad and Master Roshi are already deep in conversation with Tien about the old days by the time I join everyone. Number Eighteen actually almost smiles at me and moves over to make room on the couch, so maybe my outfit isn't that much of a disaster. I barely get to sit for a moment though.

Tienshinhan cuts short the conversation almost abruptly and insists on standing, forcing me to as well, for a formal greeting. I have gotten in trouble before, and worse, disappointed and embarrassed my dad, for not responding appropriately to these social cues which Tien seems to take pretty seriously. Even Chaotzu and Marron drift over to the sitting area as everything gets abnormally quiet all of a sudden.

This only adds to the usual awkwardness I feel around Tien. It's not that he has three eyes, or that he's tall. It's just... I don't really know what it is. Sometimes I have a hard time "getting" people, especially if they don't say exactly what they mean. Number Eighteen is probably the only person who can just look at me a certain way and I understand. But it's not that Tien doesn't say what he means either, I just get a weird feeling, like he is always expecting something from me, or staring funny.

He offers a stiff handshake and bow, which I return. Then after another pause that might be just a moment too long, he reaches into a satchel and hands me a box. It is large enough for me to need two hands to hold, but not too large. It is very square and wrapped staidly in green paper that nearly matches my dress and a wide satin ribbon that is so white it is almost silver.

"We are on our way to begin a journey in the south," he says, "and unable..."

Here another pause that seems just a little too heavy? He looks over at Chaotzu for a split second.

"To attend your party tomorrow. So."

I just stand there looking at the box. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do because Tien has never given anything to me before, and this box looks too nice for me to have it.

"Weeell," dad says, "go ahead and open it."

"Oh. Ok." I feel silly. Of course it's my birthday tomorrow and a birthday means presents. Tien even mentioned the party.

I untie the ribbon and set it aside to keep, then tear into the paper. Marron is already almost on top of me. "Ooooooh, what is it?" she croons, even though I have only revealed a white box with no markings under the paper.

I take the lid off. Inside is a small bowl that looks like it's made of brass, sitting on a small green cushion. Again, I am not sure what to do with such a thing or how to react. I look from the contents to my dad and then Tienshinhan.

"Hiro Orin," Tien says and nods at me. I guess he means for me to take it out of the box, so I do.

"Hiro Orin." I repeat the words over and over to get a feel for them, both together and then one at a time. "Hiro, hiro, hiro, heeeeerrohhhh... Ohohohorinnnn..." I feel a little less nervous.

Chaotzu laughs a little and says "I guess that means she already likes it?"

It seems like I should already know Orin, then dad says, "Nice. Did you get it at the temple?" And then I make the connection.

"Yes." Chaotzu says. "We were just near there the other day and..."

"We thought it appropriate." Tienshinhan finishes.

The bowl is very smooth, symmetrical and beautiful in its simplicity. I turn it over and over in my hands, feeling the cool surface and saying the words. Dad interrupts me.

"Aren't you going to try it out?" He retrieves a wooden cylinder from the box I hadn't noticed and holds it out to me.

"What?... I don't know..." I stammer.

"Here," he takes the bowl gently from me and sets it on the table, "I'll show you." Then he takes the wooden piece and touches it to the rim.

"Oh. Oh!" I exclaim as a high, rich sound fills the room. There's a very high reverberating tone above the main one too that causes me to wrinkle my nose a little trying to latch on to it, but I stop real quick in case they think I don't like it. I do, it's just... complex. I try out humming a harmonizing tone but it takes a minute, and by then the sound is fading away.

"It's to help with your concentration," dad explains. If you get serious about it there's a bunch of sutras and other stuff I can teach you to go with it... Now that I think about it they would be uh... appropriate, as Tien says, but one thing at a time. Ok?"

"Ok, I think I'd like that... Thank you." I repeat the formal bows to Tien and Chaotzu, hoping it's the right thing, then excuse myself to take my gift to my room and start packing up.


End file.
